The present invention relates to an image forming system for creating printed materials by inserting such special paper as tab paper for chapter separation between pages.
To produce a printed material including a plurality of chapters in the prior art, some of such image forming apparatuses as printers or copying machines are provided with a function of creating a printed material by inserting such special paper (facilitating material) for chapter separation at a designated page position. The special paper (facilitating material) includes tab paper used as an index paper for chapter separation or color sheets having different colors, as shown in FIG. 10. FIG. 10 shows an example of a five-sheet tab paper set 500, where one set is composed of five tab sheets.
The tab sheet is set on a paper feed section different from the recording paper used for normal printing, for example, on a manual tray. The image forming apparatus is designed in such a manner that, only when printing the page specified as a tab paper insertion position, the paper feed source is switched over to the paper feed section where tab paper is set, and the chapter numbers are printed on the tabs 511 through 513 of tab paper 501 through 503 having been fed, whereby a printed material 520 shown in FIG. 11 is created.
In the sheets of tab paper 501 through 505, the positions of the tabs 511 through 515 are different as shown in FIG. 10. The arrangement order of the sheets of tab paper 501 through 505 is determined in one set. When tab paper is inserted between the pages of the printed materials, it is a common practice that the tab paper 501 located at the first position is used first. Based on the practice, the image forming apparatus is configured in such a way that the chapter number printing position is varied in response to the tab position.
For example, when use of a 5-sheet tab paper set 500 has been set, the image forming apparatus adjusts the print position of the tabs 511 through 515 on the premise that the length of one of the tabs 511 through 515 is one fifth the longitudinal length of one of the sheets of tab paper 501 through 505; each of the tab positions of the sheets of tab paper 501 through 505 is varied from the other by one tab from the top to bottom of the sheet; and gets back to the top end upon arrival to the bottom, whereby the print position for tabs 511 through 515 is adjusted.
Incidentally, if the number of the tab sheets (e.g. 3) to be inserted in a printed material is not an integral multiple of the number of sheets of tab paper (e.g. 5) constituting one set and if the next printed material is printed immediately after printing of this printed material or a plurality of copies are printed, then the tab paper which is not in the first position of the set will be first fed in the next print or second and subsequent print. As a result, the tab position assumed by the image forming apparatus will be different from the actual position of the tab paper, and printing on the tab will end in a failure.
To solve this problem, an image forming apparatus (e.g. Patent Document 1) is proposed, wherein, from the number of the sheets of tab paper to be inserted in a printed material and the number of the sheets of tab paper constituting one set, calculation is made to see whether or not any excess tab paper occurs; and if any excess tab paper occurs, it is removed.
[Patent Document 1]
Official Gazette of Japanese Patent Tokkaihei 4-361083
When the image forming apparatus detects the presence of excess tab paper and removes it, the user recognizes the presence of excess tab paper only when it has been removed. 0This makes it difficult to take previous measures to prohibit the need of removing excess sheets, for example, by replacing the tab paper by that of different number of sheets constituting one set or by making prior adjustment to ensure that there will be no excess in the number of sheets of tab paper inserted into the printed material. In this sense, the prior art has the problem of poor usability.
Furthermore, the image forming apparatus detects the presence of excess tab paper and removes it. Thus, in the prior art, the existing image forming apparatus without such a function has been unable to solve the problem involved in the generation of excess tab paper.
The present invention is an attempt to solve these problems. It is an object of the present invention to provide a print data transmission apparatus, an image forming system, a print condition setting method and a printer driver capable of setting the printing conditions so as to avoid presence of excess special paper in creating an printed material by inserting a plurality of sheets of special paper such as tab paper constituting one set into a designated page position.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a print data transmission apparatus, an image forming system, a print condition setting method and a printer driver capable of solve the problems of generating excess special paper on the existing image forming apparatus.